Christianity - Creative Heritage

Apart from the surmounting cross itself, the symbols are quite logical: a tower would presumably have a square (or at least, cornered) cross-section, whereas a spire or steeple would be more or less circular in cross-section ~ since, taken as a whole, it would be in the form of a cone.

'Messiah' is the title by which Jewish people believe God is yet to come again, but for Christians Jesus was already the one. The 'Hallelujah Chorus' is effectively a great fanfare of praise for His conquering death through the Resurrection. It is widely believed that King George himself was so overcome with awe at its first performance that he stood up, and everyone else present felt obliged to do the same ~ a practice quite often echoed during modern performances.

It would, of course, depend on the size and tradition of the building, but except in the smallest or sparsest you should be able to find examples of at least a few, possibly plenty of the above. Unlike some other faiths which prohibit likenesses of living things (including people) in their places of worship, many churches have for centuries had stained glass to remind congregants of key episodes and characters in the Bible. Even the simplest such building will have been put up 'to God's glory and in His service', as nobly as the faith-community's budget will allow. In the case of cathedrals they can of course be vast and elaborate, and richly decorated with all kinds of craftsmanship from soaring ceilings to vast pipe-organ cases and large co-ordinated sets of commemorative or inspirational kneeling-cushions for times of prayer. The sense of devotion can very much be a 'part of the fabric' as one visits and participates in worship.

Of course, nails were the 'other significant component' (than the two wooden beams) of the original crucifixion routine, making this all the more poignant

There is at least one very readable book under the title 'Amazing Grace' which tells this story in gripping detail. As and when you have researched it further, singing the song in future will give you rather a more resonant perspective on it!

This would be the final meal taken by Jesus with His Disciples on what we now know as Maundy Thursday (for them, originally, also the Jewish Passover), at which He offered the model for what has now become the Communion ritual of the Christian Church. There are many fine examples of this scene by great artists of the Renaissance and ever since, which you should be able to find without difficulty online or in works of reference.

This is a craftsmanly, but instantly recognisable interpretation of Revelation 3:20 ('Behold, I stand at the door and knock'). Answer 2 was a complete fabrication, answer 3 is in a very broadly similar tradition but otherwise hardly comparable, and answer 4 was another made-up 'distractor' with strong echoes of Abbey Road (recording) studios in the 1930s!

In Jesus' story, the only man who came to the aid of a traveller who had been attacked and robbed and left for dead, was 'a Samaritan' (i.e. from a neighbouring tribe to His original hearers, but who crossed the street ~ and the huge cultural divide ~ to rescue and look after him). When Rev Chad Varah set up his first phone line (using the then-new technology) with a kindred 'listen-and-help' aim in mid-20th-century London, he took the 'Samaritan' label to represent his organisation.

Answer 1 refers to Jesus' teaching on forgiveness; answer 2 is from 'the Lord's Prayer' (His model for anyone's daily prayers to God); answer 3 goes back to Moses and his requests to the Egyptian Pharaoh to let the people of Israel emigrate and found their own nation-state in the Promised Land.

These, and many others, are splendid examples of what we can still (nowadays, just about) refer to under their correct musicological category as 'Negro Spirituals', in that they were originally created and sung by slaves of African origin in the New World. Their slavemasters, however cruel they may sadly have been, stoutly maintained that everyone on their plantations (etc) should be more or less Christianised, and the slaves ~ as you may imagine, if you care to consider it ~ latched onto many of the Old Testament stories of oppressed individuals and people (Daniel, the Hebrews, weeping Mary and others) and fashioned these into songs that resonated with their own bleak experience and hopes, using simple but noble and elegant tunes from their own heritage. In due course this tradition developed further into the Blues and other more mainstream forms of 20th-century popular music.

For particularly iconic performances of some of these pieces, you might like to find recordings of Paul Robeson (a very interesting man in his own right, as you may discover), particularly singing versions in the arrangements by Harry T Burleigh. If those aren't evocative of 'Christianity within Culture', we'd be hard put to it to suggest more plangent examples!